To Alien Ant Farm singer Dryden Mitchell, there are two kinds of bands in the world: those that are great at what they do in their genre and stick with it, a la AC/DC, and those that strive to do something different every time.

Alien Ant Farm falls into the latter category.

The Riverside-rooted band drops “Always and Forever,” its most adventurous album yet, on Tuesday after a multiyear struggle to get it released.

The group will play an album release show at Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Feb. 24, before headlining a benefit for late Sloth bassist Andy Kowatch at M15 in Corona on Saturday, March 7.

Alien Ant Farm has always been a sonic shape shifter, with a popular cover of Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” and melodic rocker “Movies” launching the group into the mainstream at the turn of the century. The band’s next album, 2003’s “Truant,” included the Latin-tinged “Tia Lupe” that channeled a samba beat.

“There’s something very scatterbrained about the band,” Mitchell said.

The band’s wide swath of influences is put to music on the new song “Homage,” immortalizing various artists from the Beatles to the Pixies to Phil Collins.

In addition to more straight-ahead rock songs, “Always and Forever” has touches of electronica, and the song “Our Time” features Austin-based rapper Zeale. There are also plenty of radio-friendly tunes, including the power pop gem “Burning.”

“That’s one of the out-on-the-limb songs for us,” guitarist Terry Corso said.

The new music started flowing in 2009 after the band played at the Sonisphere festival in England a year after original members Mitchell, Corso, drummer Mike Cosgrove and bassist Tye Zamora reunited.

“When we first got back together, we immediately started working on new songs,” Corso said.

Ultimately, half of “Always and Forever” was written by the band and half of the record was written with co-writers.

Among the earliest songs the band wrote after reuniting are two of the hardest rocking tracks on “Always and Forever” – “Godlike” and “Dirty Bomb” – but it would be nearly six years before those new songs got a public life.

Mitchell, who now lives in Huntington Beach, estimates that the band ultimately recorded the album 21/2 times.

The problems that plagued the band during the process of recording and releasing the album could fill an entire behind-the-scenes documentary on their own. There were hold-ups with labels and management, trips in and out of the hospital for guitarist Corso and not quite a year ago, Zamora departed the band. (Tim Peugh, Corso’s longtime guitar tech, is now the band’s bassist, but only Zamora played on the album.)

Even an effort to get “Always and Forever” into the hands of its fans was wrought with issues. In 2013, the band launched a fundraising campaign to release the album and among the rewards for donors was an advanced digital copy of the new album. Some pledgers voiced their complaints via social media after Billboard.com posted an exclusive stream earlier this week.

“I’m really upset and ashamed with what happened,” Corso said.

Mitchell set up an email address for upset donors to contact him directly so he could attempt to rectify the issues. Most of the responses have been positive, he said, but he wants to make things right for the fans who donated to the band.

“I want to make the pledgers feel good,” Mitchell said.

At the end of the day, it’s about the music. Mitchell still has the paper on which he wrote down the 50-plus songs that band members rated on a scale of 1 to 10 to figure out what would make the cut during a recording session in a Chicago three years ago.

Beyond the drama that came with getting the music out, Alien Ant Farm has recognized its own growth with this comeback album.

Vanessa Franko is the Digital Director of Entertainment for the Southern California News Group. The lure of palm trees and covering pop culture brought her to The Press-Enterprise in Riverside in 2006. Vanessa has reported on everything from the Palm Springs International Film Festival to the MLB All-Star Game as a reporter, photographer, videographer and on-camera personality. She's won awards for her coverage of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and for crime reporting in her home state of Maryland. Vanessa studied multimedia storytelling as a Knight Digital Media Center fellow in Dec. 2011 and has taught college courses in digital journalism. She's seen shows at every major concert venue in Southern California, but most special was when Paul McCartney played the high-desert roadhouse Pappy & Harriet's in Pioneertown for a couple hundred fans in Oct. 2016. Her album collection numbers in the thousands (including a couple hundred on vinyl) and when she isn't hunting for records, she and her husband like to check out the best in Southern California craft beer and watch sports. She also had a cameo in the 1992 Atlanta Braves highlight film, Lightning Strikes Twice!